Southeast Asia’s digital economy can grow 17 percent to $368 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2026 and exceed $1 trillion by 2035, according to the 11th annual e-Conomy SEA report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company.
In a statement on Wednesday, the three companies said the report, titled “Building the Intelligent Economy,” covers ten countries, excluding Timor-Leste.
The report says generative AI has reached 243 million people in the region, or 58 percent of the working population, scaling four times faster than the mobile internet did in under three years.
The report also introduces a new measure, AI usage quantified in tokens, or the AI equivalent of GMV. Current regional use is 5-7 quadrillion tokens per capita, roughly 10 percent of US levels. Consumers account for about 60 percent of regional tokens, mostly for everyday work and study. Enterprise workloads make up 45-60 percent of usage in Singapore and Malaysia.
The report projects that AI demand could rise up to 60-fold by 2030.
By sector, the report projects e-commerce GMV of $226 billion, up 18 percent. It says 69 percent of shoppers use AI to compare complex purchases. AI has helped commerce players achieve a 10 percent year-on-year conversion lift, the report highlighted.
Online travel is projected at $59 billion, up 10 percent. The report says generative AI platforms now capture 26 percent of trip-planning journeys, ahead of social media at 23 percent.
Online media, including advertising, video streaming and gaming, is projected at $44 billion in revenue, up 22 percent, making it the fastest-growing sector.
Mobility and food delivery is projected at $40 billion in GMV, up 15 percent.
Digital financial services, measured by gross transaction value, can grow to $1.65 trillion, up 16 percent, with digital lending balances growing 22 percent to $116 billion.
On consumer attitudes, the report says 72 percent of users already rely on everyday automations. 75 percent are willing to let AI agents find the best prices and complete purchases for them. It also says 62 percent of users trust AI more than they did a year ago.
Its surveys show trust depends on privacy protections, cited by 44 percent of respondents; and on the ability to reverse autonomous actions, cited by 30 percent.
Private funding for the region’s digital applications sector has stabilized at about $8 billion a year, the report says. Companies with core AI products captured 80 percent of deal value in the past six months, up from 30 percent in the second half of 2024.
Private capital in AI compute and digital infrastructure totaled $20 billion over the past 12 months, led by the $11 billion acquisition of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres.
The report says meeting the 60-fold growth in AI usage will require roughly a three-fold expansion of data center capacity over five years, national frameworks for energy-efficient data centers and clean power, and falling inference costs.
It also points to the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement, which it says is due in November 2026 and would be the world’s first region-wide digital trade pact.
On Singapore, the report projects digital economy GMV of $31 billion in 2026, up 8 percent, and $59 billion by 2035. It says the country hosts most of the region’s AI infrastructure funding and is adding 200 MW of green energy to its 1.4 GW of compute base.
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